


Ecstasy

by Stairre



Series: Resonance [5]
Category: The Transformers (IDW Generation One), Transformers - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Bounty Hunting, Don't copy to another site, Established Relationship, Explicit Sexual Content, Falling In Love, First Time, Fluff and Hurt/Comfort, Gentle Sex, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Implied/Referenced Hate Crimes, Implied/Referenced Prostitution, Implied/Referenced Sexual Assault, Interface Mods, M/M, Marking, Oral Sex, Possessive Behavior, Praise Kink, Smut, Sticky Sexual Interfacing, There are no good guys in war, This is like 1/3 worldbuilding and 2/3 smut, discussion of sex, that they share and are both into
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-22
Updated: 2021-01-22
Packaged: 2021-03-13 09:34:50
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 15,088
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28901229
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Stairre/pseuds/Stairre
Summary: Hot Rod's no stranger to desire, but it's always been more other people's than his own, and holding onto a flame only means you risk getting burnt.Hot Rod doesn't burn - fire's kind of his thing - but facing the topic of Deadlock and their shared bond - theirshared desire -head-on is still overwhelming in an entirely unfamiliar way.---In which Deadlock and Hot Rod have a damn good first time together, 6k of build-up leads to 9k of smut (no lie), and the author finally gets around to the smutty Hotlock oneshot this series was supposed to be.
Relationships: Drift | Deadlock/Hot Rod
Series: Resonance [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1843339
Comments: 10
Kudos: 48





	Ecstasy

**Author's Note:**

> To all those who are here solely for the smut and don't care that this is the fifth part of an ongoing series: skip the first 6k, and don't complain to me when you don't get all the wider references in the scene.
> 
> To all those who are following along and are invested in this series: please enjoy the 6k of worldbuilding and emotional build-up to the smut. Also enjoy the smut.

**Resonance**

**Ecstasy**

–

Their latest bounty is worth more alive than dead, so the holding cell they converted one of the _Luminary’s_ extra hab suites into gets another work out as Deadlock and Hot Rod secure zem in there, in an organic stasis pod, unconscious for transport. It’s not a perfect system, but it’s a damn sight better than their quarry being awake and in need of organic-necessary sustenance that they just don’t keep around, or awake and a danger to zemselves or them, or awake and capable of escape attempts.

Besides, prisoner transport ships on both of their ex-sides always put prisoners into stasis-lock, and so do Inter-Planetary Peacekeeper vessels. It’s not _illegal,_ or even unethical. Just – perhaps a little unkind. Easier on resources, of course, but Hot Rod’s done enough waking up where he wasn’t before to know that it’s a special kind of fright, one that’s hard to describe to anyone who hasn’t gone through it themselves.

He still doesn’t feel much sorrow for this sentient, though. Zey’re wanted for a string of murders – mostly from an ethnic minority on zeir home planet – and the files that he and Deadlock had received upon taking on the hunt had been, well… Hot Rod was a Wrecker, and even he had cringed at some of the holos.

Deadlock finishes laying their bounty inside the pod, carefully checking with a medical scanner that the taser rifle he had used to knock zem out didn’t leave lingering damage, before leaning back and sliding the pod doors shut, locking them with a clunk, and tapping on the attached screen to induce the organic-safe stasis. On the pod’s other side, Hot Rod relaxes his grip on his blaster, lowering it from where he had been holding it aimed at the unconscious sentient, in case zeir _unconsciousness_ was more illusion than reality.

“That’s that,” he sighs, holstering his blaster back into subspace. “Let’s get back to Cam O’ek.”

Deadlock hums an agreement. “I call first use of the wash-rack,” he says, rolling his stiff shoulder pauldrons back, hearing the gears let out a series of clicks.

Hot Rod looks his spark-mate up and down: dust and grit cover Deadlock’s armour plates in a thin brown-orange layer, and surely more has gotten in under the seams in a most itchy and uncomfortable way. Deadlock had lain in wait for their quarry in a sniper’s nest for over seventeen hours, and while he hadn’t complained – likely too used to doing such for his ex-side – Hot Rod certainly understands wanting to get under a spray of warm solvent after that.

“I’ll go set the course, then,” he says, turning and leaving the room ahead of his mate, “but if you use all the hot solvent before I get a shot then I’m not giving you a goodnight kiss.”

“I won’t,” Deadlock grins behind him.

–

Hot Rod is warm, as always. He runs hotter than standard, and Deadlock hasn’t yet asked why, when Hot Rod’s slighter frame should be suffering under that much heat. He’s not – the medical scan Deadlock had taken, months ago when he had first frantically laid out his unconscious mate on a battered berth on an even more battered Decepticon skiff, desperate for him to be okay – had told him that, so… it’s personal, probably. Not his business ‘til Hot Rod makes it his business.

In any case, it makes his mate perfect for holding during the recharge cycle. They migrated into curling up next to each other two out of three nights in the same large berth in the master hab suite a few months after they bought the _Luminary,_ though they haven’t yet done more than just recharge together. That’s fine, more than fine. Deadlock _wants_ to take it slow, and it’s a feeling that’s shared. Even now, nearly a standard Cybertronian year into their new life, it all still feels a little fragile, like one harsh blow could bring the whole thing shattering down around them.

(Sometimes, he wakes in the night cycle, fearing that Hot Rod is nothing more than the fleeting dream of a tormented processor, desperate for an escape from reality.

Every time, he reaches out, and Hot Rod’s plating meets his fingers, and Hot Rod’s spark resonates against his own, and his mate awakens, blinking sleepily, and rolls over to press their frames closer. “I’m here,” his mate always mumbles, and Deadlock always returns the favour when it’s Hot Rod’s hands gripping and waking him, tight, like Deadlock could fall away into nothing but ashes between his digits if he loosened his hold.

He wonders how long it will take before the fear goes away. Maybe not ever, but as long as it’s an unfounded one, then he can live with it.)

“C’n hear you thinkin’ fr’m here,” Hot Rod mumbles into Deadlock’s arm, turning over in the berth. “What’s the matter?”

“Nothing,” Deadlock whispers back. “Go back into recharge.”

Hot Rod pauses, then onlines his optics, bright blue in the dark hab, blinking tiredly but rapidly becoming more awake. He catches Deadlock’s optics in his, and raises an optic ridge. “Nothing?” he asks.

“You’re warm,” Deadlock says, and when a light tension begins to stiffen Hot Rod’s face and shoulders, adds on, “and very cute.”

Hot Rod flushes, but his joints relax a little. “Too right I am,” he says. “But – I _suppose –_ you have your moments, too.” His optics brighten as he teases Deadlock.

Deadlock rolls his optics, stifles a smile, and leans in to kiss Hot Rod’s cheek. “Go back into recharge,” he reiterates. “I’m just being restless. There’s nothing wrong.”

Hot Rod squints at him again, but his interrupted recharge cycle is clearly pulling at his processor, so after a moment he offlines his optics again and mumbles out, “G’night, then.”

Deadlock places one of his hands over Hot Rod’s, curling their fingers together. “Goodnight,” he whispers.

–

They drop their bounty off at Tol’z City on Cam O’ek, a sprawling metropolis of a settlement, built over several islands and connected by many, many bridges. The word _tol_ apparently means _bridge_ in the native language of the planet, and the water flowing below is tinted an orange-pink with the glow of the bioluminescent fungi which crawl just about everywhere.

Deadlock once spent a good couple of hours staring down into the clear water, waiting for Hot Rod, tracing the rounded stones along the bottom, his optics constantly catching the flash of scales as fish swam about below, each one looking like the glint of armour, and each time he’d had to cycle back down his automatic targeting systems. Despite this, he still holds it as a good memory, a suspended moment of peace amongst the bustle of a planet where no-one knew who he was, and no one _cared_ to know, and no one cared to take offence to his presence. There is a certain comfort in being just another anonymous sentient in the crowd, in knowing that you’re not important enough or interesting enough to draw attention.

Cam O’ek’s sky is a stretching haze of lavender, pollution regulation laws keeping it clear, the light of the stars above shining, and it has two moons. On one of these moons, there is a mixed colony of the native Cam-Okeo, and their nearest neighbours, from a planet in the same system – a mechanical species known as the Kygons.

Cam O’ek – and its immediate surrounding planets – is one of the safest places in the known galaxies for a mechanoid to be, right now. Cam O’ek is not part of the Galactic Council, and has rejected joining for many millions of years, in a gesture of friendship and solidarity with the Kygons. Out here, they are on the very edges of the known galaxies, on the very outskirts of the Galactic Council’s reach, and there is a certain amount of pride taken in their holding out of claiming the offered benefits, and in their spurning of the price they would pay to get them.

There’s virtually nothing here that would draw the attention of the warring Cybertronians: no access to Galactic Council resources means that the small number of neighbouring systems have banded together tightly, and they may be small, but they’re strong and clever and there’s a _trust_ between them that is missing entirely in other parts of the known galaxies – none of them have anything to gain, and much to lose, should one of the planets fall. They are organised, with Cam O’ek at the head simply due to seniority, and whatever resources they have that might attract searching optics, there are far easier targets around, a lot closer than these outskirts. If Cam O’ek is a potential target, it’s far, _far_ down the list.

Hot Rod and Deadlock don’t look much like the Kygons – the mecha native to this system don’t transform, for one thing – but with the Inter-Planetary Peacekeepers having no jurisdiction but what they might be given by the natives for cases of theirs that stray into this area of space, bounty hunters thrive here. Oh, there are native policing forces as well, but those are mostly for on-planet matters. Inter-planetary crime? There’s a community of bounty hunters and mercenaries kept around for a reason, and as long as they’re willing to work with the law, then Cam O’ek is willing to pay, and pay well.

The bounty office is in the north-east quarter of Tol’z City, a low building that’s mostly underground levels, shaped like a tinted glass dome, deceptively fragile-looking from the outside. Hot Rod and Deadlock land the _Luminary_ in the open concrete expanse behind the dome, the ship’s systems warning of hidden laser turrets turned in their direction as their ident ping goes through the office’s system and they communicate across the comms with the Cam-Oke on duty. Only once they’ve been cleared do they land.

Hot Rod chats with the ground crew while Deadlock unlatches the organic stasis pod from its frame and activates the anti-gravity pulses, walking down the ramp of the _Luminary_ with the pod floating next to him, joining the small congregation on the ground.

One of the bounty office’s staff looks in through the viewing window of the pod. “Yep,” she says, squinting one pair of eyes, her lip curling, flashing sharp canines, “it’s zem all right. C’mon, let’s get this _uu-kak_ inside.”

Hot Rod grins at that. _Uu-kak,_ he’s learnt, means something like _slagger,_ but much stronger, something that implies that the person is utterly reprehensible in both word and deed. The Cam-Okeo call the Galactic Council a bunch of _uu-kako,_ and it had made Deadlock laugh viciously the first time they’d had the word explained to them.

Hot Rod leans against the counter by Deadlock’s side, meshing his EM field with his mate’s, while Deadlock works through the paperwork with the official behind the desk, confirming the identity of their bounty and the amount that will be transferred into Deadlock’s G.B.C. account. He feels jittery, buzzing with a restless energy, and he doesn’t know why.

When all the boring stuff is done, Deadlock tilts his head as he pings Hot Rod on their private comm, the two of them stepping away from the desk. _/ Something the matter? /_

Hot Rod shrugs. _/ Dunno. Just restless, I think. C’mon, let’s get back to the ship – I’m not feelin’ up to wanderin’ Tol’z today. /_

Deadlock narrows his optics slightly, his EM field prickling with concern, but Hot Rod determinedly walks forward, leading the way back to the _Luminary,_ feeling his mate’s gaze on his back, proximity pings chiming from his spoiler wings, but not even he knows just what has gotten into him.

They take the _Luminary_ up to the orbital space port, docking there, seeing the lush expanse of Cam O’ek spread before them through the front view-port. Hot Rod twitches in his seat, fidgeting, before turning to Deadlock.

“Sorry,” he says awkwardly. “I’m just – feelin’ weird today. Nothin’ you’ve said or done, jus’ me being jittery. I’m gonna take a shower an’ a nap and see if I’m better company later.”

Deadlock pings concern at him across the bond, but nods. “I’ll see you later.”

Hot Rod stands up from the pilot’s chair, leans over Deadlock in his, and kisses him squarely on the mouth. “Don’t get into too much trouble while I’m rechargin’,” he says, teasingly. “No parties.”

Deadlock snorts, and relaxes, tension receding from his frame. “May you have kind dreams,” he says.

–

It’s not until he’s under the warm solvent – his frame warmer and a buzzing beneath his armour plates, almost an _itch,_ really – that Hot Rod figures out what has him so out of sorts.

_Oh,_ he thinks, feeling dumb, as his interfacing array pings in his HUD, a twisting desire for touch throbbing through his circuits. He shifts his weight in the wash-rack, resisting the urge to reach down and press his palm against his panel.

Primus, it’s been a long time since he’s felt this: actual, honest-to-Solomus, _sexual frustration._ That’s – huh. It’s been a long time since his frame has had the opportunity to get this far without fragging someone, probably a good couple million years, the majority of his lifetime. No _wonder_ he didn’t recognise it at first.

Hot Rod bites his lip, glances at the locked door, and still feels almost furtive as he gently muffles his end of the bond and touches, gently, his fingertips to his panel. Even that light touch sends his sensor-net alight, perhaps emphasised by the secrecy, the idea of getting _caught_ self-servicing heightening the arousal.

It’s strange, really. The only other mech on the ship is his fragging _spark-mate,_ and Deadlock’s not gonna punish him or shun him or laugh at him, not even if he walked in here right now, not even if he walked in on Hot Rod with his fingers shoved up his valve, or clenched around his spike. There’s no _reason_ to feel furtive.

Hot Rod thunks his head back against the tiled wall, fingers stilling on his closed panel, and just – thinks, for a moment.

Back in the Wreckers, everyone was ‘facing everyone else, and everyone had walked in on everyone else at some point or another. Hot Rod’s not frame-shy: his entertainer past never let him form a standardised sense of shame to start with, and the Wreckers would have stamped that out of him if he’d had. It’s just –

Interfacing has always been associated with – with _violence,_ in Hot Rod’s mind.

Being an entertainer – well. No matter the actual actions in whatever room, he’d not had a choice in his state-assigned role, and – and that means that, back then, interfacing was his _job._ And, no, it wasn’t always – or even often – physically violent or forceful, but – there’s a certain violation, still, in never having had a choice. He’d liked some clients, disliked others, been neutral towards most of them, and got good at making others feel good.

With the Wreckers… well… here’s the thing: arousal is a bio-mechanical response to stimuli. It’s a state of heightened senses, heightened energy, and it can be caused by numerous inputs – anger, fear, desire, the fight-or-flight response… combat environments and programming.

They’d all being ‘facing each other, high with combat programming and fresh off the battlefield, still covered in energon and coolant and dirt and all other kinds of hideous substances. Hot Rod barely remembers the last time he ‘faced someone without the scent of gun-smoke in his olfactory sensor and the taste of energon and chemical residue on his glossa, trembling hands pawing at scuffed armour plates, desperate for the reassurance of life, his and theirs.

Violence and interfacing, death and desire, placed side by side in his mind.

And – and that’s messed him up, hasn’t it? It’s slagged him right up, if he can barely conceive of the idea of touching his spark-mate – of _wanting_ to touch his spark-mate – without the noise of artillery and the screams of the dying still ringing in his audios.

Hot Rod swallows, shutters his optics, and wishes, fervently, that all these thoughts of horror hadn’t made his spike pressurise inside its housing, pressing against the back of the closed panel… Hadn’t made his valve clench at the thought of Deadlock – _the_ Deadlock – throwing him down onto some hidden crevice in a battlefield and fragging him, a dark spike forcing him open, red optics bright and desiring, his fangs splitting Hot Rod lip as he kisses him, the taste of his own energon in his mouth, the whining of missiles over their heads and the spattering of gunfire somewhere distant.

He doesn’t want violence from his mate, or for his mate, he really, truly doesn’t – so why can’t he teach himself to want _gentleness?_

–

It’s dark in the hab when Deadlock walks in, his knock unanswered, the lights dimmed down all the way. That’s – unlike his mate. Hot Rod prefers the lights on, even in recharge, dimming them down to 15% at their lowest. Deadlock frowns.

Hot Rod is on the berth, curled on his side, spoiler wings jutting out, the tips extending over the edge of the berth. That’s not too unusual, thankfully; Hot Rod nearly always recharges on his side, curled up on himself if he’s alone, clinging to Deadlock and pressing into his side if he’s not.

“Hot Rod?” Deadlock calls out. There’s no way his spark-mate is still in recharge – combat programming will have had him coming online at the undisguised entry if nothing else. No answer. Deadlock lingers there in the doorway, because he hasn’t been invited in, and privacy and respect for personal space is so important, but – he’s concerned. “Hot Rod?”

This time, Hot Rod shifts in place. “… Yeah?”

Deadlock decides against straight up asking Hot Rod what the matter is; it’ll just make his spark-mate clam up. “I’ve got a cube for you,” he says instead. “Can I come in?”

“… Yeah,” Hot Rod says, sitting up on his berth, crossing his legs. He doesn’t turn the lights on. “Can you, er, leave it there?” He points to the end of the berth.

Deadlock sets the faintly-glowing cube down. He can see Hot Rod, of course, night vision mods already active, amplifying the light from the corridor and the pink glow from the energon cube. His mate doesn’t _look_ ill or injured, though he has a grimace on his face. The spark bond is still clamped tightly closed. “Do you want me to leave?” he asks, simply, instead of repeating his earlier questioning of Hot Rod’s state. His mate’s modus operandi when something isn’t quite right in his world is _avoid-avoid-avoid,_ and not even being his spark-mate exempts Deadlock from that. Not _yet,_ at least.

Hot Rod’s face twists. “… No,” he says, not quite miserably, but edging that direction. He rubs his face, ignoring the cube on his berth. “Primus,” he whispers, “this is so stupid.”

“What is?” Deadlock asks, carefully.

Hot Rod groans, drags his knees up to his chest, and plants his helm directly on them. “You’re gonna laugh,” he says, not looking at Deadlock.

“I won’t,” Deadlock promises, because anything that makes his spark-mate act like this, even if it turns out to be more Hot Rod over-thinking something of little real consequence than anything actually serious, is not funny.

Hot Rod sighs, stays quiet a moment, and Deadlock can feel in his spark the moment that Hot Rod gets so sick of his own hesitance that he plunges head-first into the issue, spitting out, “’Kay, so. Like. I got super revved up in the wash-rack earlier.” He cuts himself off, glancing up at Deadlock. “You can laugh now, promise.”

Deadlock does not laugh. Instead, he sits on the edge of the berth, minding the cube, and says, “No, go on. You got revved up…?” He ignores the image of Hot Rod his mind has conjured up, wet in the wash-rack, solvent falling over his frame, glistening on his golden spoiler and trailing down his chest, hand down between his legs and wrapped around his spike, helm tipped back and face drawn in pleasure. It’s a good image, but – this is not a good time, and Hot Rod is still uneasy in some way, which is just not good fullstop.

Hot Rod cycles through a vent and says, “Yeah. Er. I just – I…” He scrapes his fingers over his helm, tracing its curve, running his fingers against the crenelating kibble, pressing hard. “I didn’t like it,” he whispers, miserably.

Deadlock stills, something cold curling inside his fuel tank. “… Go on,” he says, not whispering, but matching his volume down low. He aches to reach out, offer a touch of comfort – if, indeed, comfort is what his spark-mate is after – but he doesn’t know whether Hot Rod wants someone touching him right now, after his – somewhat vague, but still concerning – words.

Hot Rod jerks a little in place, though, probably feeling the pensive but deep concern emanate across the bond, through Deadlock’s EM field. “Wait,” he says, fast, “slag, not – Mortilus take it – not, um, er – not. Not like that.” He lifts his head, reaches out his hand, places it on Deadlock’s forearm, right over the gold hand print he left there when he marked Deadlock as _his._ “Frag, I’m – not explainin’ this well.”

Deadlock places his hand over Hot Rod’s, cupping it to his arm. He tilts his head in askance, trying to give Hot Rod room to speak, pulsing _comfort-solidarity-reassurance_ through his EM field.

Hot Rod looks somewhere to the left of Deadlock’s optics, embarrassment twisting through his EM field, underscored by something that feels like shame. “I – uh – I don’t. I don’t think I’ve… Okay, slag it – I don’t know how to _sweet_ in the berth. I don’t know how to – go about any of that with – with someone I – I want to fall in love with.”

He reaches out with his other hand, both now clasping Deadlock’s arm, leaning across, looking up with a shamed face. “I’ve never – I don’t think I’ve ever ‘faced with – I don’t think I’ve ever ‘faced an’ _wanted,_ one-hundred-per-cent, to be there.” Hot Rod shutters his optics, helm hanging, avoiding Deadlock’s gaze. “I was doin’ a job when I was with clients, I was learnin’ another fraggin’ _survival skill_ if it was with another entertainer, or – or it was just – coming off the battle high, or searchin’ for some sign of life, some sign that anythin’ meant _anythin’_ with the Wreckers. I’ve never – had a slaggin’ _relationship_ before, an’ I don’t know what to do.”

Hot Rod let go of Deadlock, slipping his hand out of his mate’s lifting them up to cover his face, spoiler wings trembling with embarrassment and distress. “I don’t – ‘facing has never been about _me,_ not really. An’ I know – I _know –_ that ‘facing isn’t _necessary,_ but – I don’t know how to want it, _really_ want it. I don’t know how to – ” He cuts himself off, heaving in vents, before finishing, whispery, “I don’t know how to want to be _made love to._ How to want gentleness an’ sincerity. I don’t know how to want it when there’s not rage shakin’ in my lines, or apathy, or – I don’t know how not to make it another battlefield I wage war on.”

Hot Rod falls silent, shivering in place, looking so adrift for a moment that it _hurts._ Deadlock swallows, gently and slowly lays a hand on Hot Rod’s shoulder, and says, “You want to be open, honest – vulnerable. But you don’t know how.”

“I know what Hot-Rod-the-entertainer wanted,” Hot Rod says. “I know what Hot-Rod-the-Wrecker wanted. I don’t know what – what _just Hot Rod_ wants. An’ – and maybe it’ll overlap, in places, but – but I’ve never had a chance to find out. An’ – slag – I’m sittin’ here, whining about all this, an’ I don’t even know what _you_ want.” He rubs his face again, spoiler wings drooping. “Sorry.”

First instinct is to say something like, _I don’t want anything that makes you uncomfortable,_ but – that’s kind of a non-answer, and it’s certainly not what Hot Rod is looking for. Deadlock considers a moment, then pulls – gently – Hot Rod to him, wrapping his arms around his spark-mate, tucking him into his chest.

“I’ve had encounters when I’ve truly wanted my partner,” he says quietly, “but more where it’s been a job, a means to an end. Buy-mech, remember? When I pulled myself out of that, I swore that the only one who I would ever touch like that again would be my spark-mate, and only if he wanted it.” Deadlock looks down. “Do you want it?”

“Yes,” Hot Rod replies, certain, face turned into Deadlock’s neck cables, but his voice clear. “I just – don’t know _how_ I want it. I – I – ” Embarrassment suffuses through his EM field and he sighs, aggrieved, into Deadlock’s neck. “I can do all manner o’ tricks,” he admits after a moment. “I know how to make mecha feel good. But, I think… I’ve never just – interfaced, all sweet like, like I had all the time in the world, like I didn’t wanna be anywhere else. I – Adaptus, this is _embarrassing.”_

Deadlock strokes his hands across Hot Rod’s back, and whispers into his audio, repeating his spark-mate’s earlier words, “You want me to make love to you.”

Hot Rod makes a mortified wordless whine in the back of his intake, but does not deny.

Deadlock drops a kiss to his helm. “I can do that. I – would like that, too.”

Hot Rod groans, rubs his face, and says, “I’m the one who made this embarrassing, aren’t I?” He looks up at Deadlock, then huffs and presses his own kiss to his mate’s mouth.

Deadlock hums, flicks his finials, and says, “Honesty is vulnerability.” Unspoken is that _vulnerability_ gets mecha _killed._ It did – for those who came from their backgrounds, at least – before the war, and has only gotten worse since then. Hot Rod wasn’t wrong to be uneasy, even if a part of Deadlock _aches_ that their kind has fallen so far that not even a spark bond can fully assure someone of safety.

Hot Rod kisses his cheek and leans out of his hold, Deadlock’s hands slipping away, because no matter how much he wants to hold on tightly, Hot Rod needs to know that he doesn’t have to be forced to let go. “Ain’t that the truth,” he says, fixing a wobbly smile on his face. He glances over at the abandoned cube, still glowing a light pink in the dark room, and at the door with the light slanting inside, and at Deadlock’s red optics suffusing a glow over his handsome faceplates. “Can. I want to, but. Can I think about it a bit more?”

Deadlock shifts off the berth. “Of course,” he says, knowing that what his mate really means is that he’s had enough for one day. No judgement for it, and Deadlock even feels the same: they’re both rubbed a little raw, right now, and neither of them want to rush into anything. “Recharge well.”

Hot Rod echoes his words, and Deadlock slips out the door, shutting it behind him. Outside in the corridor, he vents deep, shuttering his optics.

An awful, nasty part of him is – is _glad_ that his own spark-mate _understands,_ that he shares these types of – past experiences. It’s a part Deadlock isn’t proud of – he shouldn’t be _happy_ that Hot Rod hurts this way, hurts the same way Deadlock hurts, and he isn’t _happy,_ to be fair, but he is a little _relieved,_ and he _hates it_ – but he can’t stop the guilty relief that, if Primus or _whoever_ paired his spark, at least they gave him Hot Rod, who won’t judge.

–

Six days later, Hot Rod slings himself down on the sofa next to Deadlock and says, “How do you ask _Wanna frag?_ in a romantic way?”

Deadlock does not choke on the mouthful of fuel he’s got in his intake, but it is a near thing. He puts his cube down on the low table, clears his throat, and replies, “If there is one, I’ve never heard it.”

“Oh,” Hot Rod says. Then – “So? Wanna frag?”

Deadlock glances at him from the corner of his optics. Behind the nonchalant mask, Hot Rod is nervous. It’s also the first time he’s brought up the topic since their early-night-cycle talk some days ago.

“Do _you?”_ he asks, because Hot Rod has an awful habit of throwing himself into things before he’s ready out of some combination of impatience to just have it over with and annoyance at his own hesitance. Deadlock’s seen enough memory files slipping down the bond in recharge to know that it’s a natural trait his spark-mate has, honed by the war, where decisive action taken quickly upped chances of survival exponentially.

Hot Rod huffs, rolls his optics, and says, _“Yes.”_ Then he stops short and hastily adds on, “Er, if you’re up for it. Sweet-spark.”

“I am,” Deadlock says, leaning over and kissing Hot Rod’s cheek. “But – I would like to – _talk –_ before I succumb to your seduction.”

Hot Rod shifts in place, sinks deeper into the sofa, less like he’s about to get right back up, and says, “Go on,” somewhat nervously.

“Nothing bad, promise,” Deadlock assures. “I just wanna get us on the same page regarding some stuff. Stuff like kinks, and boundaries, things like that.”

“Oh!” Hot Rod relaxes a little. “Yeah. That is – a conversation we should have, isn’t it?”

Deadlock runs a hand over one of Hot Rod’s arms, curling down to place his hand over Hot Rod’s. “Never had the opportunity?” he asks, softly, because that’s – that’s not a great start, doesn’t bode well in addition to whatever hang-ups Hot Rod’s already carrying, but – it’s finally Hot Rod’s turn to _speak,_ his turn to be _listened to,_ and Deadlock would throw himself into a smelter before he would take it away.

Hot Rod grimaces, and says, “So, like, just – stuff we _really_ don’t wanna do?” he asks. “… Does it matter what it is?”

“Anything,” Deadlock confirms, “even if it’s something a lot of people like but you don’t, or something you don’t mind receiving but don’t want to perform, or vice versa. _Anything.”_

Hot Rod sits back in the sofa, flexing his spoiler wings, fidgeting his fingers, and thinks about it. Deadlock lets the quiet draw on, refocusing his attention back on the last dregs of the fuel in his cube, not staring at his spark-mate as he works out his thoughts.

“I don’t mind,” Hot Rod starts, flushing, his faceplates growing warm. He stutters a moment, then continues, “I don’t mind, um, doin’ _some_ oral. I don’t mind licking your spike or maybe takin’ the head into my mouth, but – no deep-throating. That’s – I don’t wanna. That slag got ruined for me by a client ages ago.” He glances at Deadlock from the corner of his optics, waiting.

“Okay,” Deadlock says, committing the boundary to memory. “What about your helm if you’re giving oral? Or eating out a valve? Receiving oral?”

“Don’t hold my helm if I’m down between your legs,” Hot Rod says immediately, more confident now that the first step has been taken. “Don’t try to control what I’m doin’ down there. Shoulders are fine, neck is fine, just – don’t push my face into your array an’ slag like that, I can’t stand it. Er – valve oral is fine, I – like it more, to be honest. Receiving is fine for either. Um… you?”

Deadlock shrugs a little. “I don’t mind sucking you off or eating you out. Deep-throating, is, eh, not my favourite, but sometimes I feel like doing it, generally with smaller spikes. I’m the same with the helm thing, though, I don’t like someone trying to control me while I’m doing it, but I don’t mind if you touch my helm, as long as you don’t do that. I like having my finials stroked when I’m doing oral, but they’re not handles, so don’t tug on them like they are. Receiving valve is fine, stimulation on my spike is fine, but I don’t actually like deep-throating from the other side. I know you don’t wanna give it, which is great, but even if you did I wouldn’t want to.”

“Huh,” Hot Rod says. He’s relaxed now, not buzzing with a nervous energy, and it’s good to see. “Er – I. Dirty talk?”

“Don’t mind it,” Deadlock says, “but I don’t like it degrading or humiliating. None of that _you take me so well, whore, your valve was made for this_ slag. I know some people like it, but – I don’t like hearing it, and, to be honest, I don’t wanna be sayin’ it either. You?”

“Yeah, the same,” Hot Rod replies. “I’ve had enough o’ that slag for a lifetime; it just doesn’t make me feel good. Um… I don’t mind usin’ either my spike or my valve, I’m not that bothered… I do like gettin’ a good spikin’, though. I, er. I like it when my partner stays inside me for a little while, after.” He rubs his chin. “’Kay, so I maybe have a bit of a preference for gettin’ spiked. I don’t mind doin’ it, though.”

Deadlock hums. “I’ve always been picky about who I let spike me,” he says. “Charged extra to let a client do it, bit above the standard rate. Made up for it in slightly undercharging sucking them off, though. It was – a bit of control, back then. More than you had, I think. Unless I’m wrong?”

Hot Rod shakes his head. “Not wrong,” he says, mouth twisting a little before he lets that old rage go. “You prefer spiking, then?”

“I would happily spike you,” Deadlock says, and this time he smirks. “I’d let you spike me if you wanted to, but I think that so far we’re pretty well aligned in desires.”

“Didn’t realise spark-mating extended quite this far, but. Yeah. Suppose I’ve never heard of a pair who were incompatible in the berth if they chose to cultivate an interface life together.” Hot Rod hums. “An’ I’d’ve probably heard about somethin’ like that – clients could be quite chatty as to why they’d ended up in my arms instead of their partner’s.”

Deadlock snorts. “I remember,” he says. “So – kinks? Mods?”

Hot Rod glances down, at his panel, and says, “I’ve got – a lot of mods. Barely even remember a time when my array was standard. Got assigned entertainer an’ I think I was in with a medic gettin’ array mods the next day. I’ve – let some of them go, over time, but. I like some of them.” He shifts in place, uneasily. “An’ I didn’t wanna leave myself with – with nothin’ to sell, if I ended up separated, or abandoned, or – some slag like that.”

Deadlock considers that information. “Got some you don’t like, still?” he asks.

Hot Rod tries to shrug it off. “Yeah,” he admits. “Some I – would like gone, when we get access to a proper mechanoid medic… maybe we should ask around Cam O’ek. Discreetly.”

“We’ll do that,” Deadlock promises. “Next time we’re there.” He rolls his shoulders back, letting the gears click, and says, “I removed all of my mods. Didn’t have that many to start with, but – I wanted them gone at the time. There’s some I’d like back, or to get for the first time, I suppose, but. I’m standard, at the moment.”

Hot Rod nods. “Kinks?”

“Not a big fan of being held down,” Deadlock says, thinking, “though I do like holding other people down. Bondage is fine from either side, as long as there’s an emergency override or way out. I like a bit of roughness when I’m in the mood… You know, we _really_ do not have any ‘facing toys or equipment on this ship…”

Hot Rod smiles a bit. “We really don’t,” he says. “And, lucky for you, I _like_ being held down, an’ we’re on the same wavelength regarding bondage. Hey, do you think Cam O’ek has some mechanoid sex shops? Or would we have to go to Kyga? We could talk all this over in way more detail when we find one, since, er. Nothing _super_ kinky is gonna be happening today. The stasis-cuffs onboard are _not_ meant for kink and do _not_ have an emergency override.”

Deadlock nods. “Yeah,” he says, “that’s fine. I just – wanted to get the basics down. Is there anything else you can think of?”

Hot Rod thinks for a moment. “One last thing,” he says, looking down at Deadlock’s hands. “If you’re gonna finger me, you had _better_ transform away those claws.”

Deadlock glances down, a slight grin pulling at his face. “I will.”

–

They end up in Deadlock’s room, since he’s got the slightly bigger berth. Hot Rod dims the lights slightly on their way in, down to about 60% or so, enough that the glare from the strip lights above isn’t too harsh, but nowhere near down enough to call the room _dim,_ really.

“Not ‘facing you in the dark,” he says. “For one thing, it’s stupid when you don’t know your partner’s frame, and two, this isn’t – somethin’ I wanna hide in shadows.”

“I just want to see you,” Deadlock replies, reaching out and taking Hot Rod’s face into his hands, leaning down to press a kiss to his lips. He licks against Hot Rod’s lower lip, and his spark-mate opens his mouth, tilting his head, letting Deadlock’s glossa inside. Hot Rod tastes like the coolant he must have been drinking prior to his coming to talk to Deadlock, the taste still sharp and cold, but not unpleasant.

Hot Rod lifts his hands, places them to the back of Deadlock’s neck, and pulls him down further, closer in. He opens his mouth wider, moving his own glossa against Deadlock’s, sliding them together. When Deadlock withdraws after a moment, he clicks his glossa and says, “If you don’t leave me with swollen, kiss-bitten lips, I _will_ lodge a complaint.”

Deadlock snorts softly, but recaptures Hot Rod’s mouth, nibbling gently with his denta. Hot Rod huffs out an impatient vent and bites back, suddenly, pulling on Deadlock’s own lower lip and pushing his glossa inside in the middle of his mate’s startle, curling it to explore Deadlock’s mouth, tracing the roof of his intake and the points of his sharper denta.

Deadlock shifts his grip to Hot Rod’s sides, waiting until his spark-mate has finished his – lovely, skilled – kiss to say, “Impatient, are we?”

Hot Rod opens his mouth, obviously goes to say something smart, and then stops. Deadlock raises an optical ridge. Hot Rod grins at him, then arranges his face to look exaggeratedly coy, looking demurely up at Deadlock through half-shuttered optics, and says, sweetly, almost breathy, “If you promise to mark me up ‘til no one in the universe could doubt I’m _yours,_ you can take as long as you like.”

Deadlock inhales a sharp vent, his hold on Hot Rod’s sides clamping down, and says, strained, “That’s not fair.”

Hot Rod throws his head back and laughs, the slight little bit of tension still left in the room shattering. “Oh, come on!” he says, grinning. “You’re always touching my mate-mark – literally _all the time._ You _love_ lookin’ at the mark your spark and first touch left on me; it’s hardly a big step to – extrapolate. An’ lucky for you, I _like_ bein’ marked, so. This is permission to have _fun.”_

Deadlock growls, low in his vocaliser, low in his engine, and yanks Hot Rod to him, his mate coming eagerly, biting down on Hot Rod’s lips harder this time, very carefully not enough to pierce the soft metal, but enough that it makes Hot Rod gasp and open his mouth involuntarily. Deadlock immediately plunges his glossa inside, and this time he makes it clear that what he’s doing is _claiming,_ not just kissing.

Hot Rod moans into his mouth, raising his hands to Deadlock’s helm, curling his fingers around the sensor-heavy finials. He remembers his mate’s earlier words – _they’re not handles –_ and doesn’t grip them, but he _does_ stroke them, and when he reaches the tapered tips, he disperses a spark of charge from his fingertips directly against them. Deadlock spasms in place, his grip tightening, and Hot Rod grins as best he can into his mouth.

“You wanna play like that, huh?” Deadlock asks, before lifting Hot Rod up and walking them towards his berth. He checks in, though, a long ago conversation in a wash-rack flitting through his mind. “This okay?”

“Hm?” Hot Rod asks. “Oh, yeah. This is – _very_ much wanted.” He wraps his legs around Deadlock’s middle, grinding their panels together. “Come on, throw me down, get inside me.”

“I thought you promised me patience?” Deadlock teases.

“I never promised _patience,”_ Hot Rod denies. “I only said you could take as long as you liked. I never said I wouldn’t _complain_ about it. ‘Cause, like, I totally will.”

“You up for gagging when we get ourselves to a sex shop?” Deadlock asks, interested, only half-teasing.

“Oh, Primus, you can’t just _say_ stuff like that,” Hot Rod complains. “Uh, yeah, completely. Er – long as we have a pre-arranged safety signal then _yeah,_ I will totally do gagging with you later, promise.”

Deadlock’s optics brighten at that answer, but he puts the thought aside for later perusal. Right now, he has a spark-mate who’s never been _made love to,_ and that’s something that has to be corrected _immediately._ Is there a part of Deadlock that’s thrilled that _he’s_ the one who gets to be Hot Rod first experience of this? Of course there is, Deadlock’s not in the habit of denying the existence of the jealous parts of himself. But joy is meant to be shared, and even more the joy for one who shares his spark with him.

Deadlock doesn’t throw Hot Rod down, instead laying him out gently on the berth, clambering on top of him in the same motion. Hot Rod’s legs fall from his hips to lie spread around Deadlock, and Deadlock trails his hands down, grips his mate’s thighs, and spreads them wider, settling in place with all the immovability of a mountain.

“What, no foreplay?” Hot Rod half-teases.

“Trust me,” Deadlock smirks, “you’ll be _begging_ for it when I finally open my panel.”

Hot Rod’s optics brighten a little, but he says, “Promises, promises…” and bucks his own panel against Deadlock’s, his already-warm frame slightly warmer than usual.

Deadlock ignores it, though not without difficulty. He _has_ been celibate for about three million years, after all, and he can’t deny that he’s probably far more sensitive than he was the last time he did this. He presses his fingers into the red bio-lights lining Hot Rod’s waist, redirecting charge to the tips, buzzing it against the sensitive bio-lights. At the same time, he presses his face into Hot Rod’s neck cables and _bites,_ hard enough to dent, avoiding piercing the fuel lines but definitely leaving no doubt about the mark he was making.

Hot Rod groans, flexing his frame and trying to press into both of Deadlock’s hands at once, his fingers tracing the indents of the bio-lights as Hot Rod moves. Then Deadlock – carefully, because this one can hurt both of them if he gets it wrong – gathers a static buzz of charge inside his mouth, leaking out of the internal oral sensors and dispersing directly onto the neck cables he’s got his denta around. Hot Rod’s vocaliser abruptly resets, a moan choking off in a burst of static, and Deadlock smiles around the line in his mouth: even after all this time, he’s still retained that skill.

“Oh, _frag,”_ Hot Rod says, when his vocaliser is back up and running. “Electro-stimulation from your _mouth?_ Where did you learn _that?”_

“Undercharged for oral, remember?” Deadlock says, letting the lines go, observing the dents he’s left smugly. “Had to make sure they kept coming back somehow.”

“Oh, _Solomus,”_ Hot Rod gets out as Deadlock sinks more charge from his fingertips into the bio-lights under them, brightening their glow. Hot Rod squirms in place, curling his legs around the small of Deadlock’s back again, trying to pull their panels to grind against each other. His is distinctly warmer now than it was a couple of minutes ago. “Yeah, come on,” he says.

Deadlock smirks and denies him, instead reaching back for old skills, manipulating his EM field to brush teasingly against Hot Rod’s, charged with pleasure, and rumbling his engine louder as he does so, adding a slight vibration in frequency to the field. “You down with field play?” he asks.

“You can keep doin’ that all day,” Hot Rod says, humming back, soaking in the feeling of Deadlock’s EM field. It’s a low-level buzz all over – for now, at least – and it’s – nice. Slower and gentler than Hot Rod is used to field play being, but – not bad, not bad at all. It’s like an embrace, feeling Deadlock all around him, simmering and slow, the pleasure not a flare across his sensors, but the creeping warmth of a hearth fire. He meshes his own EM field against his mate’s, letting them merge, starting a feedback loop between them.

Deadlock groans at that, the feeling of Hot Rod’s EM field threaded through the looped back buzz like the touch of a warm hand on bitter-cold plating, almost painful at first, thawing into something that sinks beneath the armour, making one hyper-aware of the pump of their own fuel lines and the turning of their gears.

It has been a long time since he permitted himself this kind of touch, designed to bring pleasure, and he doesn’t regret it, not one bit, but – it’s quite a lot, like fresh fuel slipping down his intake into tanks so empty they’re going dry. The desire for it had become habitually ignorable, like how he’d once barely noticed the low fuel warning in his HUD because he was so used to it being there. It would have been no true hardship to continue on as before, if Hot Rod hadn’t wanted… but he does want, and Deadlock wants too, and there is no reason in all the universe to deny Hot Rod what he wants.

Deadlock shifts in place, moving back, trailing sparking fingertips down Hot Rod’s frame as he brings his face in line with Hot Rod’s panel, pressing a kiss against the hot metal, hands curled around Hot Rod’s thighs, slipping the digits into the seams where his legs meet his pelvic armour, dragging the tips over the wires there.

Hot Rod whistles low. “Lookin’ good, sweet-spark,” he says, unable to hide the eagerness in his voice. Deadlock’s finials twitch at the praise – Hot Rod notices _immediately._ “Yeah, real beautiful,” he adds on.

Deadlock lightly slaps one of his thighs, not hard enough to hurt. “Flatterer.”

He leans in, presses the flat of his glossa against Hot Rod’s interface panel, tastes the metal beneath, the lingering tang of nice polish they bought on Cam O’ek, chemo-receptors on his glossa picking apart his spark-mate’s taste. His olfactory sensor begins to pick up traces of lubricant pooling behind the panel, the electric charge of wires, and all of it hot beneath his sensors as Hot Rod’s array heats up.

“Open for me,” Deadlock murmurs, lips moving against the metal beneath.

Hot Rod slides back his panel, propping himself up on his elbows so he can watch as Deadlock moves his head back to give his spike room to pressurise, red optics greedily watching it slide out of its housing. He transforms his claws, the small mod sliding away from his fingertips, making that first joint larger as the kibble rests there, a bump _perfect_ for use in fingering. He’s never stimulated another with this particular iteration of his hands, but he has, of course, over the long millennia, pleasured himself, and he can say without a doubt that the bump is _exquisite_ when digging into a valve's inner mesh walls.

Deadlock’s fingers drift from one of Hot Rod’s thighs to touch the burnt orange spike, lightly, and then curling his hand around to grip the base. Hot Rod moans at his touch, his anterior node flashing bright red just below, where the spike housing ends.

“Want me to suck you off or eat you out?” Deadlock asks, before leaning in, hand holding Hot Rod’s spike gently out of the way, and laving his glossa against the sensitive anterior node, Hot Rod throwing his head back.

“Ah – ahh…” Hot Rod tries to speak. “V-valve, please.”

Deadlock gets his lips around the node, sucking lightly, and hums an agreement. He shifts his hand up and down Hot Rod’s spike, taking the fluid beading at the end and smearing it down to help the glide of his hand on Hot Rod’s sensitive equipment, letting his fingers catch on every bump and rib that lines it, some natural, some clearly grafted on. Hot Rod’s vents are hitching, and his vocaliser is emitting a low whine, as Deadlock removes his mouth from the swollen node with one last teasing flick of his glossa, the red bio-light brighter and larger under the attention.

Deadlock glances over his spark-mate’s array: the wet mesh folds seem to have been both enlarged in size, layered in shape, and embedded with excess sensory nodes throughout, red lines of smaller bio-lights winking in and out. Valve stimulation must be _very_ pleasurable for Hot Rod, if this is what only the outer part of his array has modded onto it. There will surely be more inside the valve channel, and Deadlock doesn’t feel like he’s assuming too much with that thought. No wonder Hot Rod prefers ‘facing this way.

“Come _on,”_ Hot Rod whines, bucking his hips into Deadlock’s face, the smell of his arousal suddenly overwhelming as the damp mesh folds brush against Deadlock’s lips and nose.

Deadlock chuckles. “Take yourself in hand,” he says, loosening his hold of Hot Rod’s spike. Hot Rod blinks, then shifts his weight again, half sitting up, leaning on one arm, and reaches down a hand to wrap around his own length, charge-slicked fingers brushing Deadlock’s hand as he lets go, sinking pleasure into his circuitry. Deadlock makes a strangled sound at the touch, and Hot Rod grins, humming low in the back of his throat as he holds his spike out of Deadlock’s way.

Deadlock lowers his mouth to Hot Rod’s valve entrance, licking at the folds, pressing his nose in against the anterior node, and moving his freed-up hand under his chin, fingertips teasing the leaking entrance as he puts his glossa to work exploring the outer valve array, everywhere but where Hot Rod wants his glossa to be. He would be grinning if could, as he sinks a couple of fingers up to that first joint, the bump of his retracted claws catching on sensor-heavy mesh walls, squeezing in past the tight entrance ring.

Hot Rod moans at his touch, fingers digging into the berth topper, tightening a little around his spike as he moves it to the side to get a better look at the sight of his spark-mate between his legs, face buried in his array as he pleasures him. “Good,” he gets out, wanting to say something, deeply suspicious of Deadlock having a praise kink and setting out to collect data to support his own theory. “So – so good – you’re doin’ g-great, sweet-spark…”

Deadlock shudders a little, his EM field wavering where it’s merged right up with Hot Rod’s, and Hot Rod huffs out a breathy chuckle, a smile stretching his faceplates. _Yeah, I was right._

Deadlock wraps his lips around Hot Rod’s anterior node again, and this time he slicks his glossa and lips with charge. Hot Rod gasps, vocaliser shorting out, and throws his head back, nearly falling back to the berth as his elbow trembles and threatens to collapse under his weight. Deadlock smirks as he nestles his glossa right up into the node, pressing there and dispersing small crackles of charge directly onto it.

“ _Oh,”_ Hot Rod breathes out, “you do not play _fair.”_

Deadlock’s optics brighten mischievously, and he suckles on the node, lightly tugging on it and then letting it go, over and over, buzzing charge leaking from his internal oral components, unable to smirk, but Hot Rod can surely feel it emanating through their looping EM fields. Hot Rod moans, desperately, and clenches his hand around his spike, the beading fluid dripping down faster, some droplets falling onto Deadlock’s face, getting caught in the elegant shapes of his helm.

Finally, Deadlock takes some small amount of pity, and removes his mouth from the overstimulated node. Hot Rod lets out a slight whimper of objection, tinged with relief. He spreads his legs wider, valve entrance clenching around the fingertips still inside, dripping wet with lubricant. “Please,” he whispers, staticky. No one’s _ever_ taken this amount of time to pleasure him – he’s used to little-to-no foreplay, mecha skipping right ahead to the so-called _main event_ and – it’s nice, knowing that Deadlock is happy to take his time, to tease, that he doesn’t see him as some sort of walking, talking, convenient valve to shove his spike into.

Deadlock’s fingers have been slowly working Hot Rod’s valve entrance open, not deep, barely up to the first joint, just enough to catch and hold the bump of his kibble, a pleasant ache in Hot Rod’s valve as they tug the entrance ring into loosening more and more. But he drags them out now, letting the ring struggle to hold on to the enlarged joints before he tugs them gently free. Hot Rod’s entrance is loosened enough that, when Deadlock finally places his mouth around the entrance, his glossa slides in directly, no further stretching needed.

Hot Rod tips his head back slightly, his vocaliser stuttering on a whine, before he unshutters his optics and looks down again, watching Deadlock lie across the bottom of the berth, head at Hot Rod’s array, glossa inside his valve and face wet with lubricant from both Hot Rod’s valve and his own mouth. Deadlock glances up at him, burning red optics meeting with bright blue optics and a flushed faceplate, before refocusing his attention to the valve beneath his lips.

Hot Rod’s valve is hot, the mesh walls clamping down on Deadlock’s glossa as he pushes it in. He can only really stimulate the entrance ring and the first caliper, but it’s enough to bring Hot Rod to overload, he knows it is. Beneath his glossa, he can feel the bumps in the walls of the valve that tell him that there’s more extraneous sensors here as well, as he thought there would be, and he slicks his glossa with charge as he licks inside, lapping up the lubricant welling out of the mesh.

It’s valve lubricant, so it’s not an unpleasant taste, musky and rich – and it’s good that it’s rich, it means that Hot Rod’s recent diet has been decent quality fuel. Transfluid and valve lubricant always taste distinctly better when they’re not being produced by a frame running on ill-filtered dregs. Hot Rod tastes nice, not quite sweet on the glossa, but definitely not bitter, and Deadlock swallows the excess down with no hesitance, his own oral lubricant also being produced in abundance and wetting the valve and the mesh folds as he pleasures his spark-mate.

Hot Rod whines, whimpers, and says, “I’m – c-close,” his vents hitching. His thighs tremble from the effort of not clamping them around Deadlock’s head, and his hips are stuttering in place, trying to press himself closer, get Deadlock’s glossa deeper inside, even though it’s in as far as it will go. His hand runs up and down his spike faster, the equipment hot and stiff, slick with what’s leaked from his spike-head already, glistening on the ribs and ridges, ready to split open and spill transfluid everywhere. The spike-head is swollen and hard, the bio-lights trailing up to it bright and flashing, and he’s close – so close.

Hot Rod watches in his HUD as his systems inch up into the red zone, his capacitor banks ticking up as they fill with charge, the feedback from his interface array wonderful in its ecstasy. Deadlock’s still mouthing at his valve, glossa pressed inside, fingers clamped around his thighs and spreading him open for his spark-mate to gorge himself upon. Hot Rod flushes at the thought, at the idea of Deadlock not just desiring him, but wanting to feast upon Hot Rod’s own desire.

Deadlock in-vents deeply, gathers a large amount of charge inside his mouth, directs it down his glossa, and thinks, _Then overload for me,_ as he shoves his glossa into the cluster of sensor nodes gathered at the edge of the ridge the first caliper makes, pressing the tip into the gap, dispersing the charge through the conducting lubricant, his mouth closing down on the slick mesh folds, careful of his denta, sucking on the valve entrance with buzzing lips.

This time, Hot Rod’s elbow fails him, and he falls down to the berth with a shriek, hand clenching around his spike and the head splits and spills translucent pink transfluid everywhere, his visual feed whiting out as all of his systems overload, redlining and flashing over, resetting. His valve clamps down on Deadlock’s glossa, lubricant welling thick, the nodes flashing bright, spilling out into Deadlock’s mouth in a flood of musky sweetness.

Deadlock lets the wash of their pleasured EM fields roll over him, heightening his arousal, fortunately not bringing him up and over the edge himself. He laps up the hot spill from Hot Rod’s valve, unminding of the transfluid that has splattered over his face, leaning back when he’s done to watch smugly as Hot Rod lies there trembling, undone, his vents gaping open along his sides, steam curling into the room from his overheated frame.

“Good?” he asks, when Hot Rod groans his way online again, systems cooling down to something approaching normal, gingerly sitting back up.

“Primus fraggin’ _blessed you_ when he gave you that mouth o’ yours, that was incredible,” Hot Rod says through his static-laced vocaliser. _“Frag,_ I ain’t never had an overload like that.” He glances down, optics widening and brightening at the pink transfluid sliding down Deadlock’s face, the shine of the lubricant dripping down his chin. “Oh, oh, _babe,_ you look so fraggin’ _beautiful_ like that.”

Deadlock flushes a little.

Hot Rod huffs out a weak good-natured laugh. “What? You’ll eat me out into mind-blowin’ overload, sit there _covered_ in fluids, but I tell you you did a good job an’ _now_ you’re embarrassed?”

Deadlock flicks his finals. “Hm,” he says, going for dismissive.

_Hi there, praise kink,_ Hot Rod thinks, delightedly.

“Tell you what,” Hot Rod says, grinning, his array aching in a _most_ wonderful way. “How about you come back up here, sink your pretty spike inside me, an' rock us both into overload, hm? I can go another round, and you ain’t even finished one, yet.”

Deadlock chuckles lightly. “That was the plan,” he says, sitting up on his heels for a moment and letting his gears and pistons click and stretch. Then he crawls back up the berth, between Hot Rod’s legs again, and says, “Can I kiss you?” It seems only fair to ask – not everyone is down with tasting their own fluids, after all.

“Yeah,” Hot Rod says immediately, putting a hand to the back of Deadlock’s neck and pulling his face towards him. Their lips meet, and Hot Rod nips at Deadlock’s mouth to encourage him to open it, sliding his glossa in and tasting his own valve slick in his spark-mate’s intake. He hums, and with his other hand cups Deadlock’s cheek and slides his fingers through his transfluid, smearing it there. “You look good like that,” he says, low, husky, “covered in my spill, lips swollen and wet. You look _so good.”_

Deadlock lets out a low groan at that, and Hot Rod eases back to lie on the berth again, pulling Deadlock with him. His mate has to shift to align his panel to Hot Rod’s array, but once his hips are hovering in the right place, Hot Rod bucks up into them, his open array smearing slick onto Deadlock’s closed panel. “Come on,” he encourages, valve clenching at the thought of finally getting to feel Deadlock inside of him, his spike heavy in Hot Rod’s valve.

Deadlock hums teasingly. “Said I’d make you beg for it,” he reminds Hot Rod, keeping his panel firmly closed, despite the way his array his pinging his HUD incessantly, the way his spike is pressing against the inside of his panel, slick leaking from his valve and pooling behind the armour.

Hot Rod huffs. “Well, this is me beggin’ for it,” he says, pressing his messy array against the hot panel again. He shifts his hands to cup Deadlock’s cheek plates, stares firmly into his optics, and says, not fully able to hide his own desperate arousal, “Please frag me, sweet-spark, I’m _dyin’_ waitin’ for your pretty spike to come fill me up, _please_ get inside me, you know you want to, fraggin’ _please – ”_

With a slide and a click, Deadlock opens his interface panel, groaning in relief as his spike pressurises, already dripping beads of fluid from the head, his valve wet, clenching in the sudden exposure to cooler air. Hot Rod looks down, eagerly watching the flash of Deadlock’s purple bio-lights, gleaming bright with arousal, and the way they trail up his black spike, hard and long and pressing against Hot Rod’s abdominal plating.

“Yeah,” Hot Rod says, breathy, “yeah, yeah, _come on – ”_ He spreads his legs wider, the movement pulling the slick and sticky mesh folds apart from where they've covered the valve entrance, exposing it again, the entrance ring loose but visibly clenching on nothing. Nothing, _yet._

Deadlock leans in to kiss Hot Rod again, rocking his spike teasingly against his abdominal plating, groaning low at the friction while Hot Rod whines at the lack. Deadlock shifts his hands to grip Hot Rod’s hips, and says, some sudden glimpse of _knowing_ sliding along the bond, “Help me in.” Hot Rod wants to _touch,_ and who is Deadlock to deny him?

Hot Rod inhales a sharp vent, and lets one hand go to reach down, curling a gentle grip around the dark spike, thumbing the leaking head. Deadlock moans at the touch, and Hot Rod echoes it, running his hand along the ribs of the spike, less than he has, since they’re all natural, but such things are hardly necessary for a good time, and it’s Deadlock’s equipment anyway. Not his place to tell his spark-mate how to mod his array – not _anyone’s_ place, and this is an opinion Hot Rod holds fierce and close.

Hot Rod angles his hips slightly, and moves Deadlock’s spike to rest against his valve, using a couple of fingers to move his folds out of the way, watching the way they cling around the spike when it's in place. Deadlock’s engine rumbles, low, and Hot Rod uses a pair of fingers to hook into his own entrance ring, opening it further, tugging the spike-head to rest just inside before letting go. He gives Deadlock’s spike one last firm stroke, unable to resist, before removing his hand and raising it to hold Deadlock’s side tightly, his other now gripping one shoulder pauldron.

Deadlock rocks in place, gently, sliding his spike inside in tiny teasing thrusts. Hot Rod groans, clenches his hands against Deadlock’s armour, clenches his valve against his spike, and says, soft, _“Please.”_

Deadlock pushes in, slow, still rocking gently. His spike-head passes the loose entrance ring with ease, and the first interior caliper is little different, resisting for but a few soft impacts before the spike squeezes through, Hot Rod moaning as it does, tipping his head back. His valve contracts down, mesh clutching every rib of the spike, sensors flooding with feedback as conductive lubricant wells thicker, carrying the charge between them.

Deadlock’s vents hitch as he feels the grip of Hot Rod’s valve against his spike, wet and warm and tight, their EM fields still merged, still looping feedback between them. He can feel Hot Rod’s desperate pleasure, tinged with frustration, but more than that he can feel how Hot Rod’s on a mental brink, and if he just holds out a little longer, his spark-mate will surrender once more to the slowness, will relax back into the feedback and just let Deadlock rock him gently into overload.

So Deadlock draws on all of his own mental fortitude, and stays slow, no matter how much his instincts scream at him to bury himself deep, hard and fast, claim his mate with bites and dents and a furious pace. He’s not a slave to base-code instincts, and Hot Rod deserves what he asked, flushed, for: being made love to, their joining not a battlefield to throw themselves against. Oh, he’s sure they’ll do hard and fast later, but not now, not this time.

Hot Rod begins to mouth at Deadlock’s neck cables, his own denta not sharp enough to pierce, but that only means he’s not as careful. He closes his denta around a line and sucks, glossa licking at the dents he makes, sensitising the sensor-net beneath. “Frag me,” he says – begs, really – moving his hips back and forth so they’re rocking in tandem.

“No,” Deadlock denies him. He doesn’t pick up the pace, no matter how Hot Rod is bucking faster, trying to throw him off his rhythm. His spike is sliding against the extraneous sensor nodes exquisitely, the size difference between them enough that he’s filling Hot Rod’s valve to its natural limits, thick enough to catch on every wall, every ridge, the ribs on his spike bumping against them. Hot Rod can take more, has mods that will induce a wider loosening, but – he likes that he doesn’t have to rely on them, for his spark-mate to fit inside snugly, like his spike was made to fill Hot Rod’s valve perfectly, the ridges of his calipers and the ribs of Deadlock’s spike lining up like they were designed to. And who knows? Maybe they _w_ _ere_ _._

Hot Rod whines, his fans spinning, his engine grumbling, and Deadlock leans in to capture his mouth in a kiss before he can say anything. Hot Rod slides their glossae together, a groan in the back of his intake at the lingering taste of himself still in Deadlock’s mouth, raising one hand from gripping his mate’s shoulder to brush at the transfluid splatter on his helm, sticky and now gummy underneath his fingers, Deadlock wearing it unashamedly.

Hot Rod shudders in place as Deadlock’s spike breaches his second caliper with a faint wet squelching sound that isn’t sexy anywhere except the berth, his valve cycling down harder on his mate’s thick spike, stubbornly slow in pace. He thinks about begging Deadlock again, but – this is nice, too, if strange, unfamiliar. He feels like he’s coming apart at the seams, rattling into a pile of parts beneath Deadlock’s ministrations, being swept out into a sea with a gentle but relentless wave, drifting farther and farther from shore but not being bowled over and sinking beneath the waves.

So he trembles in place, and slowly his rocking matches with Deadlock’s, stopping the attempted faster pace, enjoying the movement in itself. His spark-mate rocks forward, he lets himself be rocked, and then Deadlock draws back, and he bucks forward, following, and it’s a simmer of a pleasure, not a flare, but – it’s good, really good, and suddenly Hot Rod could just stay here, forever, rocking back and forth with Deadlock, his valve heavy with his spark-mate’s spike, full and aching so _good._

“Good mech,” Deadlock whispers into his audio, and Hot Rod flushes with heat. Okay, _maybe_ praise might be a shared kink.

Hot Rod hikes up his pedes, hitching them around Deadlock’s waist as best he can, and if Deadlock hadn’t already been between his legs, the angle of his thighs would be presenting his array openly, practically obscenely, wet and wanting. He runs his hands down to clutch at Deadlock’s sides, fingertips still gummy with drying transfluid, digging them into purple bio-lights and smearing Deadlock’s armour even more. _Mark me and I’ll mark you,_ he thinks, possessively, but warmly, gently, as well.

Deadlock presses in, spike-head catching on the third caliper, the bumps of sensors and caliper ridges gorgeously tight, the lubricant thick with charge and so warm and slick it’s getting hard to keep his own charge levels down, to last until he’s sheathed fully inside Hot Rod. He manually redirects some of his frame’s charge to coruscate across his outer armour, letting the grounding bars set in the sides of the berth draw and catch the charge, flashing in the air, filling the room more heavily with the scent of ozone. The red lines in his HUD dip a little, and, satisfied in every way but physical, he continues his slow pace.

He’s nearly there now, he can feel the third – and last – caliper loosening under his spike, the valve clutching him tight even as more lubricant seeps through to help guide the way. His spike-head catches one last time on the circular ridge, and with a jerk pushes through, bumping against the swollen interior node. Hot Rod lets out a wordless yell, his valve cycling down hard, and bucks a couple of times disjointedly, getting Deadlock’s spike nestled deep, right against his throbbing node.

Deadlock chokes out a moan, stilling in place, not without difficulty, as Hot Rod settles again, his spike aching as the sensor bundles inside his spark-mate greedily suck up charge.

Hot Rod cycles through a couple of harsh vents, and says, soft, “Deadlock…”

Deadlock presses his face against Hot Rod’s neck, not biting, just wanting to smell him, feel the rapid pulse of his fuel pump as it ever-so-slightly expands and contracts the fuel lines there in the neck, rushing up to the processor and back down. He licks, gently, at the dents he already left, and then he begins to rock in place again, now sheathed fully in Hot Rod’s valve, spike-head stimulating the pulsing interior node, listening to the stuttering vent cycles his mate is drawing in and out of his frame, the low whimpers spilling from his vocaliser, interspersed with bursts of low static.

Deadlock rolls a wave of pleasure through their merged EM fields, feeling it ripple through the feedback loop, washing over both of them as he rocks his spike-head against Hot Rod’s interior node, venting hot air from his mouth into Hot Rod’s neck cables, feeling them grow wet with condensation, charge crackling through the air. He’s warm, so warm, like he’s about to burst into flames in Deadlock’s hands, and it almost hurts, almost but not quite, and that blaze of heat clenched around his spike, washing over his plating, is like stepping into sunlight, beautiful and bright.

Hot Rod moans, gentle, grips his hands and legs around Deadlock tighter, the mess of his weeping valve between them making their arrays slide so wonderfully, the glancing friction of Deadlock on his anterior node, the hard press of him on the interior one, the charge-carrying slick spread between them and the thrusts of Deadlock against him, moving his folds, sliding against every sensor node, catching on the calipers, hot and heavy and hard inside him, spreading him open, filling him up…

“I’m – ” Hot Rod gasps, quietly, shuttering his optics, surrendering under the rocking weight of his spark-mate, Deadlock – _the_ Deadlock – keeping his valve so full, EM field a continuous rolling wave of pleasure breaking over Hot Rod, “I’m close – ”

Deadlock rumbles his engine, watching the lines in his HUD inch closer and closer to the resetting point, ready to dump all the excess charge they’re collecting into his systems all at once, overloading all of them. He’s on the brink, too, and he wants them to fall off of it together, to ride that high in tandem. It’s something that takes skilled timing, unlike what porn would have people believe, but – he can do it, he knows he can.

He digs his digits into Hot Rod’s hips, changes his angle slightly, and – slicking his mouth with charge – he shifts his face to bite directly down on the centre of Hot Rod’s neck cables, right over the primary fuel line, digging in his denta – not enough to pierce and spill energon, but still deep – and dispersing the charge directly. The sensor-net is layered there, to better detect any problems with such an important line, and that, combined with the limited charge-carrying properties of the fuel itself, now taking it directly up into Hot Rod’s processor…

Hot Rod _wails,_ his optics bursting white, the blue nearly erased, his mouth dropping open. His valve spasms around Deadlock’s spike, and he grips and tugs Deadlock to him instinctively, and Deadlock chooses that exact moment to thrust – _hard –_ no longer rocking gentle, right against the throbbing interior node, and the charge that bursts from it, looping immediately through their merged EM fields, is enough to pull them both over the edge in a wash of pleasure so hot it feels for a moment like he’s _melting,_ their spark bond humming with their shared ecstasy.

Deadlock feels the head of his spike split open, feels it spill the transfluid that’s been building up for ages inside Hot Rod’s valve, and then it all goes white in a hot rush. He can hear his own groaning, Hot Rod’s gasps and moans, the crackles of charge in the air – can feel the clench of Hot Rod’s valve and the wetness seeping between them, his own valve cycling down on nothing, dripping with his own lubricant, the hot rush through his spike as his transfluid tanks pulse and spill, the press of Hot Rod all around him, another spill on his abdominal plating that must be Hot Rod’s spike spending its load all over him again –

Overload rips through him like laser-fire, but it doesn’t hurt, not at all, this is the opposite of hurt – he’s high, he’s floating, he’s an explosion, he’s rushing like he’s in a race, no drug has ever launched him this high, on top of the world – his spark is swelling with something he doesn’t yet dare to name _love_ –

And Hot Rod’s there, and he’s falling into him, and maybe they won’t catch each other, but maybe they can land somewhere together, still tangled up in each other, frames and fields and sparks –

“ _Oh,”_ Deadlock gasps out, and then his vision goes from white to black.

–

There’s someone humming in his audios.

Deadlock’s blinks back online slowly, his systems lagging in a most lovely way, his HUD full of reset loading lines and his array aching and wet. “Hmm?” he manages to make his vocaliser say.

“Hey, sweet-spark,” Hot Rod says, somewhere next to him. “You awake?”

“Hm,” Deadlock says again, focusing his dim optics and turning his head slightly.

Hot Rod is beside him, arm thrown over, their arrays still pressed against each other, lying side to side. “Hey, gorgeous,” Hot Rod grins, flexing his abdominal plates and bringing to sudden attention that Deadlock’s spike is still buried in Hot Rod’s valve.

Deadlock groans at the stimulation. Hot Rod’s EM field – still touching his, still meshed at the edges – goes smug and content, almost mischievous, and he hooks a leg around Deadlock’s side and rolls them both over, his valve sinking down with the sudden help of gravity to sheathe Deadlock’s spike back inside him fully, depressurised and oversensitive, but that ache is so, so good.

“How long…?” Deadlock grunts out, fumbling with clumsy hands to hold Hot Rod’s hips. His mate doesn’t ride him, though, seemingly content to sit there with Deadlock’s spike keeping him full, but still and not turning that low pleasure into pain by overstimulating as Deadlock recovers.

“Only a couple of minutes,” Hot Rod assures, leaning carefully down, languid and strutless, laying against Deadlock’s chest. “It’s a lot, after a while, ain’t it?”

Deadlock grunts an agreement, feeling more than a bit strutless himself. “If it’s only a couple of minutes after three million years, then I’ll take it,” he says, once he finds the words meandering about somewhere in the glowing haze that’s settled over his processor.

“Can I stay here?” Hot Rod asks, soft. His optics dim to half-brightness, staring into the hab, his cheek resting against the centre of Deadlock’s chest, where his spark pulses underneath.

“Stay here? What, for tonight?” Deadlock stumbles out through the afterglow. “Of course.”

Hot Rod smiles, blinking slow, feeling recharge creep up on him now that his frame is winding down from two overloads, uncaring of the sticky mess between them, the heavy warmth his valve is still wrapped around. “An’ – can I – _here?”_ he asks.

It takes Deadlock a minute to work that one out, drawing a blank until their pre-interface conversation pings in his memory files. _I like it when my partner stays inside me for a little while, after._ “… Yeah,” he says, “you can.”

Hot Rod nuzzles into his chest plate and Deadlock wraps his arms around his back, underneath his spoiler wings. He hadn’t had a chance to touch the sensitive appendages, but – there’s no need for haste. Hot Rod – he’s – he’s _here to stay –_ and Deadlock will have plenty of opportunity to touch and lick his wings another time.

Deadlock watches Hot Rod’s optics dim down – he can’t see them, but he can see the blue glow reflecting on his own armour, and hear it when Hot Rod finally shutters his optics. The mess of fluids between them is cooling rapidly, is becoming sticky and gummy, but – Deadlock simply cannot bring himself to care to clean them, and even less move Hot Rod to do it.

As Hot Rod’s vent cycles go low and steady, his EM field going soft and rhythmic in its ebbs and flows, Deadlock sends a wireless command to the control panel on the wall for the lights to dim to Hot Rod’s preferred 15%.

Deadlock doesn’t remember at which point he also succumbs to recharge, but he does, listening to the automatic processes of Hot Rod’s frame, feeling the pulse of his mate’s spark against his own.

–

Hot Rod wakes first.

He feels – good, achy, warm. And sticky, which is not so good, but that’s just kinda part and parcel of the whole _interface_ thing, and Hot Rod’s been covered in _much_ nastier fluids and residue before, so it actually barely even blips on his radar. He hums, purrs his engine, and turns his head to find his spark-mate.

At some point in the night cycle, Hot Rod has slipped off Deadlock’s front, curling into his side instead, only half on-top of his mate. Their arrays are no longer connected, though the panels are still open. Hot Rod can feel the gummy residue of dried lubricant and transfluid between his legs, his valve feeling empty, stretched, the mesh folds sticky and his nodes sensitised. His spike is depressurised, half inside its housing, and he retracts it with a sigh.

Reluctantly, he sits up, hearing his gears and joints click and wind. He glances down at the mess of his front, and closes his panel without even trying to touch the still-swollen folds and node. Then he turns his gaze to his spark-mate.

Deadlock is lying still, deep in recharge, his vents whirring quietly away in the background. He’s still got dried transfluid staining his helm, his face, his front, and his array is bared to the world. Hot Rod looks, he can’t help it, he didn’t get a chance to properly see last night, what with, uh, everything –

The spike is a dark black, dull purple bio-lights spiralling up it, a purple anterior node set above dark mesh folds. The spike is unhoused, depressurised, lying slanted to the side, dried valve lubricant sticking in every one of the interlocking seams and glinting in the low light. It’s – to Hot Rod’s optics – simple and pretty, a flared head, thick ribs ringing it, and a nice girth, perfect to fit snugly inside him.

His optics fall to the dark lips of the valve below, but – Deadlock isn’t awake, has not given permission to touch any part of him, and they never talked about somnophilia, but Hot Rod immediately puts it onto the list because the thought of being able to touch his spark-mate while he’s so relaxed – vulnerable, even – is captivating – the thought of Deadlock touching _him_ equally so –

Hot Rod shakes the thoughts out of his head. _Another time,_ he promises himself, watching as Deadlock’s systems begin to cycle up, probably subconsciously aware of the gaze upon him.

Delicate shutters slide open, red optics flickering on, gaze unfocused for a moment before the inner lenses contract, clarity descending on his spark-mate, and then Deadlock turns his head, flicking his finials, to meet Hot Rod’s optics. “… Hot Rod.”

“Good morning,” Hot Rod says, through a vocaliser still buzzing with left-over static. He resets it to clear it, and leans down to kiss Deadlock’s lax lips. “And how is my beautiful spark-mate today?”

Deadlock hums, the sound low in tone, rumbling in his chest, and stretches a little. “Good,” he decides, glancing Hot Rod up and down. “You?”

“All is well,” Hot Rod says. Then he hums and adds, “Except for one thing.”

Deadlock blinks, tenses slightly, and asks, “What’s wrong?”

Hot Rod presses another kiss to his lips and murmurs against them, “Well, you see, I overloaded twice last night, an' my gorgeous spark-mate only overloaded _once.”_

Deadlock rolls his shoulders back, listening to the grind of gears, and meets Hot Rod’s optics. “Oh, yeah?”

Hot Rod grins. “Sit up,” he says, and when Deadlock slowly does, shifts to sit behind him. “Lean back against me,” he says. “Lemme get a hand on that lovely spike o’ yours.”

Deadlock leans against Hot Rod’s chest plate, half lying down, half propped up, his head resting against Hot Rod’s shoulder. “Morning hand job?” he asks, his spike visibly twitching a little.

“If you want,” Hot Rod confirms, aching to touch.

“It would be nice,” Deadlock concedes, letting Hot Rod’s eager EM field wash over him, an echo of last night. His array pings at him, informing him of left-over charge still stuck in his systems, and how _easy_ it would be to direct it towards his interface components…

Hot Rod reaches down, running his hand along Deadlock’s front, tracing the bio-lights teasingly before clasping a palm around the dark spike. Deadlock groans low, in the back of his intake, and Hot Rod presses a kiss to his cheek, stroking up and down slowly, coaxing the soft spike back into stiffness.

It’s lazy, languid. Deadlock leans his weight against Hot Rod fully, and Hot Rod’s propped against the wall at the head of the berth, and both of their optics are half-shuttered, EM fields still merged from hours of looping together, the simmering rise of pleasure buzzing through Deadlock’s systems a lapping wave at the edge of a lake, gentle and rhythmic, in beat to the firm and slow strokes of Hot Rod’s hand.

Hot Rod thumbs the head when the seam there starts leaking transfluid, smearing it to join the mess he’s already gliding his palm through. Primus, this is mostly sticky lubricant from his own valve, and there’s something weirdly _hot_ about knowing that, even if it’s more gummy mess than anything attractive or enticing anymore. Deadlock will have to work hard in the wash-rack to get all this residue out of the tiny seams, and that’s a lovely thought, too: Deadlock with his array open, dark hands with the claws retracted gently holding and manipulating and cleaning his intimate equipment, the spray of the solvent glistening down on him…

Hot Rod rolls a wave of warm desire over his spark-mate, running a fingertip gently and directly against the leaking seam in the spike-head, mouthing at Deadlock’s left finial, glossa wet, humming as he closes his mouth over the sensitive appendage. Deadlock moans at that, the finial trembling in Hot Rod’s mouth, his spike twitching in his hand, pressurising more, growing harder and longer and thicker as all the tiny interlocking plates expand as charge and energon and transfluid is directed into the component.

Hot Rod hums again, licking and teasing the finial with his glossa, and then he gets one of his fingers under the base of the spike, pressing against the throbbing anterior node, pulsing a bright purple, swollen in the gap between the housing of Deadlock’s spike and where the wet mesh folds begin to expand from the protoform, plump and flushed, lacking the extra sensory nodes Hot Rod has, but still sensitive and delicate.

Deadlock chokes on a moan as Hot Rod rubs the anterior node, feeling it swell beneath the press of his finger, his grip firm on the base of the spike. The valve below is clenching, wet with lubricant, and, _oh,_ how Hot Rod wants to touch, but Deadlock’s a bit bigger than him, and he can’t get two hands around properly, not without giving up the way he’s embracing his mate from behind. Unfair, but – Deadlock’s pretty valve will have to be saved for another day.

He dips his fingertips into the slick anyway, before moving his attention back to the pressurised spike still begging for his touch. He swipes the lubricant up and down, a possessive part of him making sure that it gets into every seam, so that Deadlock won’t be able to get him and his touch out without difficulty. The transfluid from the head is a darker pink than the lubricant, but they’re both pretty in the low light – and that’s a 15% setting, Hot Rod _know_ _s_ _it is,_ and Deadlock prefers total darkness for his recharge, so he must have done that on purpose.

_I think I might be falling in love with you,_ Hot Rod thinks, quietly, letting the thought echo in his processor. _Or getting close to that point, anyway._ He tucks the thought away for later, shying from it a little. Spark mating doesn’t guarantee a romantic relationship, doesn’t even imply one, they’re just the one person in the whole universe whose spark resonates the most with your own, who _understands_ you the most – but Hot Rod wants what he and Deadlock are cultivating together, wants it _so bad,_ and maybe he doesn’t know what romantic love feels like, and no one’s ever given him and straight answer on the topic, but he thinks he might be discovering it with every day that passes by Deadlock’s side.

“You look so fraggin’ pretty,” Hot Rod whispers, finally letting go of the finial with one last lick. “Primus, look at you.”

Deadlock groans low. “S-standard,” he gets out, as Hot Rod grips the base of his spike firmly, dragging his hand up as though milking him of his transfluid. He’s not there yet, but the beads of translucent pink liquid well thicker, sliding down from the head and over Hot Rod’s yellow-gold hand. His valve clenches, empty, aching. He said he preferred spike over valve – and he does – but – Hot Rod can frag him, he decides, any day.

“Pretty,” Hot Rod counters, “sleek, elegant, perfect – ” He runs a slight charge through his hands, letting his own words be cut off by a loud gasp from Deadlock as the bio-lights trailing the spike brighten and Deadlock’s hips twitch forward into his grip, _“_ _–_ _m_ _ine,”_ Hot Rod finishes on a growl, and Deadlock whines in the back of his vocaliser, desire pulsing through his frame, emanating into his EM field, sliding straight and true along the spark bond.

“Yes,” he answers with a whisper, “please, Hot Rod – yours – mine – _please.”_

Hot Rod kisses his cheek, strokes firmly, and says, “Overload for me.”

With a cry, Deadlock’s spike-head splits, spilling transfluid from the tip, splattering across his abdominal plating and trailing down Hot Rod’s hand. Hot Rod watches greedily, optics caught on the twist of Deadlock’s handsome face as it draws into pleasure, the way his red optics go pink and then white, the gasps from his partly open mouth. He catches and loops back the roll of overload that comes through their EM fields, extending his spark-mate’s pleasure for just that little bit longer, watching as Deadlock’s frame trembles, his vents blowing heat into the room.

“Shh,” Hot Rod says, reassuring, tucking Deadlock’s helm between his neck cables and collar faring, “I’ve got you.”

The spike in his hand softens, still warm, still zinging a little with charge, and Hot Rod holds it carefully as it depressurises, the ribs and bumps drawing back in, the bio-lights dimming. With a gentle hand, he lifts it, and helps to slide it back into its housing, fingertips carefully pushing the head all the way in before he removes his hand from Deadlock’s array.

Deadlock shudders, shakily ex-vents, and turns his head further into Hot Rod’s neck cables, nuzzling at the dents he left there last night. “… Thanks,” he says, soft, sliding his interface panel closed again with a low click.

“Two for two,” Hot Rod says. “Never let it be said that I am not a fair lover.”

Deadlock hums, purrs his engine, and continues to rest languid and relaxed against Hot Rod. Hot Rod lets him, eventually shifting to lie back down, too, one leg hooked over Deadlock’s and pressed into his side in a line of warmth, letting the ebbs and flows of their shared EM fields lap gently between them.

“Think I’m gonna fall back into recharge,” Hot Rod mumbles out, drowsily, after some time. He gets no reply, and after a moment raises his head; Deadlock’s already fallen back offline. Hot Rod huffs, amused, glances over the added mess, and decides that it’s all a problem for future-Hot Rod.

He shutters his optics, rests his helm against Deadlock’s frame, listens to the low rumbling of his idling engine, and drops back into the realm of dreams.

**Author's Note:**

> In the manner of hobbits, this is a birthday gift from me to everyone! Please enjoy the Hotlock smut I set out to write [looks it up]... _six months ago_. 
> 
> I can also be found on [tumblr](https://stairre.tumblr.com/). Come and say hello!


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